


If You Do, If You Don't

by KrisEleven



Series: Falls the Shadow [6]
Category: Circle of Magic - Tamora Pierce, Emelan - Tamora Pierce, PIERCE Tamora - Works
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-25
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 19:36:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/653701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrisEleven/pseuds/KrisEleven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Briar wondered, sometimes, why he had bothered to escape at all. Nothing had changed. Nothing was better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Do, If You Don't

**Author's Note:**

> This series will be posted in the order I wrote them, instead of in one that makes chronological sense so I will put a small sentence before each one to place the piece in context. Since Briar was not rescued from the docks by Niko, he ended up working as a convict for a year in Sotat before he escaped to Emelan.

It had been a long winter. Late into spring, storms still blanketed the city. The seas were obviously nigh-impassable, since not a ship had taken harbour in Summersea's port in nearly two days.

For Briar, who relied on a job unloading ships just to pay for a room he shared with four other people and enough to put some beans and broth on his table at night, the lack of work was becoming troubling to the extreme. There was nothing to fall back on; no stash under his thin mattress or families with floors he could sleep on until the sea decided to play nice. There were few places that would hire an almost-fifteen year old with too many scars and two 'x's on his hands. Briar had found out years ago –when he'd first arrived –that most of them demanded things he would rather starve than give. Briar nearly _had_ starved his first few weeks off the boat from Sotat, until luck and chance found him at the docks at the right time to pick up a job there.

_Not that I'm far away from starving, now_ , he thought, rubbing a hand over an aching stomach and scowling. He hadn't eaten yet, and with nothing coming into the harbour, it looked like it would be at least another full day until he had coin.

Lightning lit the small room, thunder crashing around him almost immediately after. If the storm carried on any longer, there would be no work for at least two days. Two days without food, two days in which to avoid the landlord, or find himself out on his ear (again). The time seemed impassible, impossible, unfeasible.

Briar punched the wall beside the waxed window, impotent. He didn't know what to _do_. There was no one he could turn to for help. He could try to fall in with some thieves or muggers, pick up a job, but he knew the risks. Harriers were as likely to arrest a bloke for hanging with the wrong crew as for actually doing something illegal, and his two 'x's were guaranteed to get him hauled in front of a magistrate. He wouldn't survive another round as a convict. He couldn't.

His stomach protested again. Not that he would survive a free man much longer, either. Rations had been meager, when he was a convict, and you were likely to lose 'em if someone bigger set their eyes on you, but at least they were daily. Nothing was sure, out on the streets. Briar wondered, sometimes, why he had bothered to escape at all. Nothing had changed. Nothing was better. He even still worked on a dock! There was no magical solution waiting for him, if he could just get far enough from the streets he had been tossed out on as a kid. No one, anywhere, cared about one more street brat turned ne'er-do-good with 'x's on his hands. He had had his chances (not that he had ever seen them pass him by), he had made his choices (when it was to choose between livin' and dyin', no in-between, no shades of grey) and now he had to live with what came from that (ah –this Briar understands; he's been living with the scrap ends of what higher-ups left him since he was four years old).

Briar listened to the storm and the drunken mumbles of one of the men he shared the rent on the room with and tried to decide what to do.

The Bags would blame where he was now on the choices he had made, he was sure. But there was a secret of slums everywhere, whether it be Deadman's District or the Mire, and Briar – after years of fighting and planning and thieving and trying – had finally come to realize what it was.

No choices he could make would change anything at all.

So, Briar listened to the storm and allowed it to do his raging for him.


End file.
